Brown, Thomas Storrow

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Fernand Ouellet, “BROWN, THOMAS STORROW,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 11, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/brown_thomas_storrow_11E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Hardware merchant, journalist, Patriote, and writer; b. in 1803 at St Andrews, N.B., son of Henry Barlow Brown, a merchant, and Rebecca Appleton; m. in 1829 Jane Hughes (d. 1833), and m. secondly in 1860 Hester Livingstone; d. 26 Dec. 1888 in Montreal, Que.
    • Thomas Storrow Brown’s father, a loyalist who had taken refuge in New Brunswick in 1776, returned to the United States in 1811, settling in Woodstock, Vt. In 1818, Thomas Storrow Brown went to Montreal to live with his uncle Thomas Storrow, who found him work with the ironmonger J. T. Barrett, on Rue Saint-Paul. In 1825 Brown is believed to have opened a hardware store on the same street, probably with the assistance of the Barrett family. 
    • But from 1836 Brown committed himself openly. He worked with the most radical members of the Patriote party, some of whom were anglophones; these radicals were dissatisfied with the control exercised by the most powerful men of affairs, and were receptive to either American democratic ideas or the views of the radicals in England. In 1836–37 Brown contributed to the Vindicator, and forwarded a dozen or so open letters, under the pseudonym L.M.N., to the Express (New York). In 1837, he preached revolution to the Fils de la Liberté, and when the members of the Doric Club sacked the offices of the Vindicator during a riot on 6 November, Brown was seriously wounded in one eye.
    • Ten days later he left Montreal for Varennes, after the government had issued warrants for the arrest of Patriote leaders. He then set out for Saint-Charles where he arrived just as an entrenched camp was being established. Brown made a great impression since he had just come from the city and was practically a war casualty. With the approval of Louis-Joseph Papineau, he was appointed general, but in reality he did not have the makings of a leader, lacking both a sense of organization and the ability to inspire his men. This lack did not prevent him from forging blithely ahead, certain of victory. However, on 25 November when the fight against the government forces under George Augustus Wetherall had scarcely begun, Brown left in search of reinforcements, disappearing ingloriously from the battlefield. He went to Saint-Denis before fleeing to the United States, reaching Berkshire, Vt, on 10 December.
    • When this venture failed, he found himself a post as an auditor but when amnesty was proclaimed in 1844, he returned to Montreal and went back to hardware. On the evidence of the Montreal directory, Brown apparently set up his own business on Rue Saint-Paul about 1854. In 1862, he was appointed to the Financial and Departmental Commission “to enquire into the prevailing mode of keeping the Public Accounts of this Province, and the items of receipt and disbursement of money by every department of the public service, and how the same have been and are now checked and audited.” Two years later he left the hardware store following his appointment as official assignee responsible for applying the new bankruptcy law. He kept this post until he became completely blind, some ten years before his death.
  • Son of Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory –https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=903
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/280945942/thomas-storrow-brown